A wife loses her ad hoc teaching job at a private school.
Her husband fires off an RTI application.
What followed went all the way to the Chhattisgarh High Court — and ended up rewriting how we read one of RTI's trickiest words.
Substantial financing.
DAV Public School had a quiet little arrangement with South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) — a public sector coal giant.
The deal was simple:
👉 SECL employees' kids get concessional fees.
👉 SECL reimburses the school for the shortfall.
A clean MoU. Pure contract. Nothing dramatic.
Until it suddenly became very dramatic.
After the teacher's discontinuation, her husband filed RTIs with SECL's CPIO seeking information about the school.
The school pushed back: We're private. We're not a public authority.
The Central Information Commission disagreed.
It ruled:
DAV took it to the High Court.
Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad went back to the basics of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act.
To be a "public authority," an institution needs one of these:
And "substantial" isn't a vibe.
It means funding so massive that the institution practically depends on the government to exist.
Grants? Subsidies? Tax breaks? Fee reimbursements?
Not enough.
The Court found that DAV Public School:
Reimbursing concessional fees for employees' kids?
Just a contract. Not a lifeline.
Even the presence of SECL reps on the Local Managing Committee didn't tip the scales — it wasn't administrative control.
And if the school isn't a public authority, the Principal can't magically become a Public Information Officer either.
The CIC's orders — set aside.
This is the line India keeps redrawing.
The Supreme Court has already said NGOs substantially funded by the government must answer RTIs.
But "substantial" is the entire ball game.
A PSU paying tuition for its workers' kids is a perk.
Not a leash.
For thousands of private schools tied to PSU townships across India — coal belts, steel cities, railway colonies — this ruling is oxygen.
The message is sharp.
A contract doesn't make you the State.
And transparency, however noble, still has a definition.
That's all for now!
